


Soft Sketches

by Aithilin



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-26 20:18:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16688266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/pseuds/Aithilin
Summary: Ignis considered this fostered talent a part of his training rather than a hobby, and he never thought he could have been considered good at it. But he has a sketchbook full of Noctis' small smiles.





	Soft Sketches

“Just like that, darling.”

Training was never about physical prowess, or even the details of their diplomatic skills. Training was about betterment, or so Ignis always thought. It was about skills honed through careful work and study and expertise whetted in tradition. Training was notes made in copies of textbooks carefully transcribed into new notebooks, and long nights bent over lecture transcripts and meeting summaries— all the trappings of the Citadel life that lay ahead of them. 

For Ignis, training was honing his eyes as much as his mind. Banishing ambiguity by making a study of the reality around him. 

He preferred sticks of charcoals to pencils or pens. He had a set for each work he attempted. The soft willows and vines he kept for most of his work with Noctis— always careful sketches and quick lines. The sweetness, the softness, the quick little lines he used to try to capture those fleeting, cherished smiles and moments. 

“Perfect, Noct.”

Wisps for his hair, falling into his eyes. A curve to his lips, for the shy little smile when it was just them, like this. A softness, roundness, that was unique to the Prince despite his father’s angles and edges. 

Training, Ignis maintained, was a test of patience and practice. A steady hand and a careful eye had served him well in all things. 

“Do I get to see it, this time?” Noctis asked, the smile Ignis was carefully trying to capture gracing his lips for a moment longer. The comic he was reading lay open on the coffee table, the afternoon snack half eaten next to him. “Or is it another secret?”

“There are hardly any secrets between us.”

Ignis smiled his charcoal moving quickly to capture the tiny, passing moments he cherished. His sketchbook was filled with unfinished, wispy moments, fading from one moment to the next as Ignis struggled to keep up. To capture and admire, as easily as Prompto did with his cameras. He had notebooks dedicated to the years of culinary secrets— trials and tribulations to perfect a skill of meticulous precision fit for the Prince— but only one sketchbook. Only one half-full of pages since his first childish doodles where done— scraps of colour and wastes of pages, all dedicated to capturing the heart of Noctis. Dedicated to setting down only what he ever saw of the Prince. 

“Then can I look at the picture this time?”

“No.”

He wished he could capture that laugh on his page. That merriment in Noctis’ eyes. He could mimic the slope of relaxed shoulder, the way his hair fell when the product in it was wearing thin. He could trace the lines over and over again, with the more solid promise of the compressed charcoals, until the image he had tried to copy looked like it was finished. 

But all he added was a little date in the corner, and turned the page. 

He knew that Noctis sneaked his peeks where he could. He knew that Noctis glanced over shoulders as he passed to the kitchen. Glances stolen in the night, as Ignis readied for bed. More than once, he had slipped the sketchbook from Noctis’ hands, and placated further curiosity with a kiss. He knew, better than anyone, that there were small doodles added here and there in the corners of pages and in the white space between the careful studies. 

More than once, Ignis had opened to what he thought was a fresh page, only to see a cartoonish figure of himself, or a chocobo, or a moogle, already waiting for him. 

And there were days when he let the soft praises fall from his lips. Days when he encouraged the playful quirk of Noctis’ lips, or the softness of his look. When Noctis stretched out in an artistic laze, directed by soft words and gentle hands in a true test of patience. 

“You’re never satisfied, are you?” Noctis asked, when Ignis relented in their argument and allowed him to examine the latest sketch— still soft and new and wholly inadequate in Ignis’ opinion. 

“No,” Ignis would admit, the dark dust of his tools wiped clean as he tidied everything away. “Never. Not with an imitation. A poor imitation at that.”

“You’re too hard on yourself, Specs.” 

“Merely a perfectionist, my darling.”

Noctis smiled, and Ignis matched it, the image— the echo of that smile between them imprinted by Ignis’ vision— was closed away for now in the book, for an examination later. A critique later. When Ignis could review his own work, after tracing those same lips with his own. 

He would gladly spend a lifetime memorising every changing, inconsistent, living feature on Noctis’ face. He would happily let the man Noctis was now replace the wide-eyed boy full of energy and light that he had been when they first met. He would happily pull Noctis to him to be studied and examined, every pale freckle and imperfection, fading scar and hint of blush. 

“You keep looking at me like that,” Noctis muttered against his lips, weight settled on Ignis’ lap, where the sketchbook once rested. “Stop.”

“Never.” Ignis chased Noctis’ kiss, let his hands steady his love against him; “I want to study you forever.”

“Creepy, you know.”

“Hardly.”

“Very.”

“Would you pose for me again?”

“Of course.”

It was all a matter of perspective. The art was a study of patience and precision, of details and careful representation of the reality presented. Ignis did not like ambiguity. He did not like the diplomatic lies he navigated in the Citadel meetings, or the way people thought they could slip through his careful defence of the Prince. 

He saw it as training. An aspect of his continued studies. “After dinner, then. I’ll have you after dinner.”

Noctis saw it as a moment of peace between them— an ease and comfort, under the only scrutiny he would never shy away from. “Whenever you want.”


End file.
